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Enabling Environment for Agricultural Market Systems

This collection highlights contributions shared as part of the Enabling Environment for Agricultural Markets (#EE4AgMarkets) Month hosted in July 2018 by USAID’s Office of Market and Partnership Innovations. Technical posts cover a range of key enabling environment for agricultural markets topics, including the private sector, trade, standards, analytical tools, plant protection, market systems, finance, climate-smart agriculture, information and communications technology, de-risking, resilience, and benchmarking and metrics. Curated by the Feed the Future Enabling Environment for Food Security project, this collection includes the over 30 posts contributed over the theme month as well as a number of other relevant contributions to the topic.

The Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) Online Learning Module Series is now available as a self-paced training program. The training includes an overview as well as more targeted modules that explore aspects of trade and finance. Participants will learn about the World Bank’s Enabling the...

In 2016, International Trade Centre (ITC), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and the Government of Ghana began working with Ghanaian private sector stakeholders on yam production, processing and commercialization. Thanks to the development of a Strategic Development Roadmap,...

The population in Africa is expected to almost double by 2050 and then double again by the turn of the century. At the same time, rapid urban migration and an expanding middle class will add further pressure on the food system. Increasing the productivity of smallholder farmers is critical to...

The role the enabling environment plays in private sector growth in the smallholder market is frequently discussed, but one voice is often missing: that of the investment community itself. This month, we will be sitting down with private sector businesses to share their stories.

Evidence shows that water and irrigation scarcity is a key concern for global food security. Water-related conflicts are on the rise. Water productivity — the ratio of agricultural output per unit of water input — is as a key leverage point for increasing food security.

Throughout July, Agrilinks showcased learning across the enabling environment sphere, highlighting why the enabling environment matters and how USAID, implementing partners, and the private sector have worked to facilitate systemic change across markets.

In 2013, Rwanda’s dairy sector comprised approximately 15 percent of its agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) and six percent of overall national GDP. At that time, the government of Rwanda introduced a program to provide 350,000 poor families with one dairy cow each, adding to the 110,000...

The enabling environment for agriculture — the formal and informal rules in markets — has a direct bearing on the strength of the private sector. This post explores what elements of the enabling environment are key to supporting private agriculture sector growth.

This post was written by Chris Warren. When Kumar Thapa was a young boy growing up in the green, rolling hills of midwestern Nepal, he knew exactly how he wanted to occupy his days. “I wanted to study,” says Thapa, now 24, as he sits amid rows of ripening tomato and chili plants that cover the...

The American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) and China National Seed Association (CNSA) signed a memorandum of understanding in 2012 and renewed their partnership in 2015. Through this partnership the two associations have cohosted over a dozen activities aimed at enabling the Chinese business...

The Council on Smallholder Agriculture Finance (CSAF) is a pre-competitive alliance of 12 financial institutions that seek to expand the market and develop industry standards for lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the agriculture sector. In 2014, one of the CSAF members made a US$200...

The E3 Analytics and Evaluation Project, led by Management Systems International (MSI), developed the Agricultural Scalability Assessment Toolkit (ASAT) to assess the scalability of agricultural innovations and provide a qualitative appraisal.

This post unpacks a key publicly available index and associated resources to measure changes in the enabling environment and produce comparative data to drive reform efforts — the World Bank’s Enabling the Business of Agriculture Index.

Rwandan women perform the majority of the country’s agricultural labor, and represent 70 percent of those who make their living from agriculture. Yet, the productivity of their work, and their integration within market systems, lags behind that of men. As we begin to ask “why,” the more limited...

The following text draws heavily from the Guide to the Agricultural Scalability Assessment Toolkit (pdf below), developed by the E3 Analytics and Evaluation Project led by Management Systems International (MSI). USAID’s Bureau for Food Security (BFS) and country missions have been implementing the...

Indicators can be an effective tool to prompt and inform policy change. Enabling the Business of Agriculture provides indicators and findings that are proving to be highly relevant for policy dialogue and regulatory reform that promote private sector driven agriculture.

The Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) Online Learning Module Series is now available as a self-paced training program. The training includes an overview as well as more targeted modules that explore aspects of trade and finance. Participants will learn about the World Bank’s Enabling the...

In 2016, International Trade Centre (ITC), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and the Government of Ghana began working with Ghanaian private sector stakeholders on yam production, processing and commercialization. Thanks to the development of a Strategic Development Roadmap,...

The population in Africa is expected to almost double by 2050 and then double again by the turn of the century. At the same time, rapid urban migration and an expanding middle class will add further pressure on the food system. Increasing the productivity of smallholder farmers is critical to...

The role the enabling environment plays in private sector growth in the smallholder market is frequently discussed, but one voice is often missing: that of the investment community itself. This month, we will be sitting down with private sector businesses to share their stories.

Evidence shows that water and irrigation scarcity is a key concern for global food security. Water-related conflicts are on the rise. Water productivity — the ratio of agricultural output per unit of water input — is as a key leverage point for increasing food security.

Throughout July, Agrilinks showcased learning across the enabling environment sphere, highlighting why the enabling environment matters and how USAID, implementing partners, and the private sector have worked to facilitate systemic change across markets.

In 2013, Rwanda’s dairy sector comprised approximately 15 percent of its agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) and six percent of overall national GDP. At that time, the government of Rwanda introduced a program to provide 350,000 poor families with one dairy cow each, adding to the 110,000...

The enabling environment for agriculture — the formal and informal rules in markets — has a direct bearing on the strength of the private sector. This post explores what elements of the enabling environment are key to supporting private agriculture sector growth.

This post was written by Chris Warren. When Kumar Thapa was a young boy growing up in the green, rolling hills of midwestern Nepal, he knew exactly how he wanted to occupy his days. “I wanted to study,” says Thapa, now 24, as he sits amid rows of ripening tomato and chili plants that cover the...

The American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) and China National Seed Association (CNSA) signed a memorandum of understanding in 2012 and renewed their partnership in 2015. Through this partnership the two associations have cohosted over a dozen activities aimed at enabling the Chinese business...

The Council on Smallholder Agriculture Finance (CSAF) is a pre-competitive alliance of 12 financial institutions that seek to expand the market and develop industry standards for lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the agriculture sector. In 2014, one of the CSAF members made a US$200...

The E3 Analytics and Evaluation Project, led by Management Systems International (MSI), developed the Agricultural Scalability Assessment Toolkit (ASAT) to assess the scalability of agricultural innovations and provide a qualitative appraisal.

This post unpacks a key publicly available index and associated resources to measure changes in the enabling environment and produce comparative data to drive reform efforts — the World Bank’s Enabling the Business of Agriculture Index.

Rwandan women perform the majority of the country’s agricultural labor, and represent 70 percent of those who make their living from agriculture. Yet, the productivity of their work, and their integration within market systems, lags behind that of men. As we begin to ask “why,” the more limited...

The following text draws heavily from the Guide to the Agricultural Scalability Assessment Toolkit (pdf below), developed by the E3 Analytics and Evaluation Project led by Management Systems International (MSI). USAID’s Bureau for Food Security (BFS) and country missions have been implementing the...

Indicators can be an effective tool to prompt and inform policy change. Enabling the Business of Agriculture provides indicators and findings that are proving to be highly relevant for policy dialogue and regulatory reform that promote private sector driven agriculture.

This post explores the plant protection data available through the World Bank's Enabling the Business of Agriculture Index and its relevance for the current Fall Armyworm outbreak in Africa as well as strengthening plant protection systems in the future.

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